


The Tyrant, the Fairy, and the Au Pair

by Griselda_Gimpel



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Florida, Prophecy, Religious Cults, Road Trips, Sexual Content, Swearing, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22527877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griselda_Gimpel/pseuds/Griselda_Gimpel
Summary: After an au pair rescues a fairy from her dirt bag employer, the two must travel across Florida in a cool car to find a Hero to stop the Tyrant who is threatening Fairyland.Set in 2019.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Breakfast was always an excruciating affair. It wasn’t, Mariam reflected, that the cooking and cleanup afterward were especially bad. It was everything else. Jeremy Smith, oldest of the Smith boys, would dump his eggs down the shirt of his next younger brother – Joseph – if Mariam didn’t keep a close enough eye on him. Joseph never wanted his eggs the way she made them, and it didn’t matter if she asked beforehand how he wanted them. If she ignored him, Mr. Smith would chastise her, and she would find herself gritting her teeth. The youngest boy was Jedediah. He wasn’t so bad, except that he always seemed to be on the edge of tears. He got that from his mother, Mariam supposed. There was also an older daughter around Mariam’s age, but she was off at college. Mariam was honestly happy she’d gotten away from the lot.

It hadn’t been so bad, at first. Then again, she used to get paid for the work she did.

Mariam clenched her jaw as she cleared away the empty plates and instructed the boys to brush their teeth before they headed off to school. Mr. Smith was droning on about the important business he would be attending at the office that day. Mrs. Smith hadn’t moved from her place at the kitchen table and appeared to be staring at the space just to the left of the wall clock.

There was always an undeniable decrease in tension when Mr. Smith finally grabbed his coat and left for the day. Mariam ushered the boys out the door of the Smith’s penthouse apartment, over to the elevators, down to the first floor, and then to the corner, where she waited for the bus to come take them to their private school for the day.

Mariam had been in the United States for two years, and she had been in the employ of the Smith family for a few months, which had been just long enough for her latest work visa to expire. Mr. Smith, all smiles and white teeth, had offered to get the renewal paperwork taken care of for her, and like a fool, she’d trusted him. She’d discovered that he’d lied the same day she discovered that her passport was missing, which was three days before she discovered that she wouldn’t be receiving another paycheck.

She’d confronted Mr. Smith about that. He’d stared blandly and unashamedly back at her and said that if the arrangement didn’t suit her, she was welcome to return to France or Jordan. So she’d called Pastor Lance, only to discover that Mr. Smith had already spoken to him. Mariam blinked back tears at the memory of that conversation. Pastor Lance had been the one who’d called both of her parents to the altar. She’d _trusted_ him.

Once back at the penthouse, Mariam checked in on Mrs. Smith, although she already knew what the mother of the family wanted.

“Just a mix of this and that,” Mrs. Smith requested breezily. “You know how I like it.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Mariam answered and then headed to the bar. Mr. Smith drank, too, and so kept it well stocked. Mariam sorted through the various half-filled bottled, pouring just a tiny bit from each one into a glass with ice. She couldn’t imagine it tasted very well, but the important thing was that Mr. Smith never learn that any had been taken. Mariam understood that even if Mrs. Smith had never said it in quite so many words, and she hardly blamed the woman.

While Mariam was eager to continue her search for her pilfered passport, she resisted the urge to start right away. She didn’t want Mrs. Smith asking any questions, so as Mrs. Smith’s first drink was followed by a second and then a third, Mariam patiently washed the breakfast dishes and waited for the alcohol to take effect.

“Be a dear and wash this,” Mrs. Smith told Mariam after she had finished her third drink, handing her the empty glass. Staggering over to the counter, she fumbled for the keys to the Mercedes-Benz. “I need to run to the store.”

Mrs. Smith took another three confused steps, at which point Mariam deftly took the keys from her. “Why don’t I call you a cab?” Mariam suggested. She slipped the keys into the pocket of her dress before Mrs. Smith could protested.

“Here,” Mrs. Smith said, fumbling for her wallet. She pulled out a wad of cash, which she thrust into Mariam’s hand. “Use cash.”

“Of course, Ma’am,” Mariam assured her. Mrs. Smith had a plentiful selection of plastic cards, of course, but Mr. Smith monitored the bank account closely.

Once Mrs. Smith was on her way, Mariam breathed a sigh of relief. With the house empty, she could continue her search in earnest. She’d made a mental list of all of the rooms in the penthouse and had been methodically searching them in the guise of her requisite cleaning.

Today she began with the bar and then searched the kitchen, but it was in neither of those places. That was a shame, as the kitchen had proved to have a number of nooks and crannies her passport could have been hidden in, and she had spent a great deal of time searching.

She consulted her mental list. The next room to search was the gym, and it was there that events took a turn for the strange. It started with the door to the gym being locked, which was odd because it was never locked. Mariam had sighed, assumed that one of the boys had locked it by accident, and retrieved a hairpin from one of the bathrooms. It wasn’t the first locked door she’d encountered in her search, and she was getting quite good at bypassing the locks. The very first lock she had picked had taken her a full hour to get open, but now she could get through in less than a minute. As long as she remembered to lock the door afterward, no one would be the wiser.

Mariam smiled as the door unlocked. She thrust it open, strode in, and found herself staring at a naked woman chained to the core and arm exercise machine. Standing next to her and holding a dagger with runes carved in it was Mr. Smith, except that now he was wearing black robes over his business attire. A number of glittering contraptions had been hung from the ceiling, and a collection of lit candles encircled the pair.

Mr. Smith started when she came in. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Mariam strode over to the line of candles. “Then this is not something that Pastor Lance would disprove of, despite what it looks like?” she asked.

“Stop or I’ll-” Mr. Smith began.

“Your wife would hear me scream,” Mariam lied. She took a careful step over the line of candles. It was strange. She couldn’t imagine that they were terrible hot, but she felt a strange tingling sensation coursing through her body. She was keenly, hyper-aware of every candle that surrounded her, and it was like she could reach out and grasp the flames somehow. She placed her hands on the lengths of chains that bound the woman to the exercise machine. She needed some way to get the woman down somehow. Unfortunately, she didn’t dare leave the woman to find something to cut the chains with. It was clear that the woman wasn’t well; she barely seemed conscious.

Mariam might have dithered more, but she felt the chains growing hot under her hands. She stared at them in surprise and realized that they were melting at the point that she was holding them. She let go quickly and then had to move to catch the woman as the chains broke. For a moment she was worried that her hands had burned the woman, too, but she realized an instant later that they were their normal temperature.

“Cold iron,” the woman murmured almost incoherently.

“Save your strength,” Mariam whispered to her, hefting her up. Thankfully, she wasn’t heavy. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“You can’t go to the police,” Mr. Smith said.

“Neither can you,” Mariam retorted. “I don’t think even you could explain all of this away. Whatever all of this even is.”

She left the gym then, and to her relief, Mr. Smith didn’t try to follow. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she needed to get the woman out of there. She grabbed a coat off of the coat rack before exiting, throwing it around the woman to hide the chains and her nakedness, not yet letting herself focus on the wrongness she’d glimpsed there. The elevator came quickly, and she did not encounter anyone before reaching the garage. Shifting her grip on the woman so that a hand was free, she dug into her pocket for the keys to the Mercedes-Benz. First, she would get the woman away from her employer. Then she’d figure out what in Jesus’s name she was going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's an unrealistic detail, but since this is a fantasy story, I'm asking you to please suspend disbelief that Mariam's dress could have pockets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me the better part of 2020 to write five additional chapters. Then, over the holidays, I wrote fourteen chapters in twelve days. Which is to say, the entire rough draft is now done. The wonderful Stitch is doing the editing, and updates will henceforth be no less frequent than once a month and no more frequent than once a week, with Saturday being the update day. For the month of February, updates will be once a week.

It was Mariam’s first time driving the Mercedes-Benz, and she stared in dismay at the mileage on the vehicle. It was a dreadfully low number. She should have figured, really. Mr. Smith always had all the nice, shiny toys, and this was the new 2019 Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan. Not only could he call the police and report it stolen, but he could also no doubt pull up its exact GPS location on his laptop.

With a spare hand, Mariam fumbled in her dress pockets to see what she had on her that might be of any use. Not her cell phone, which she’d left back in her room and which she certainly wasn’t going to go retrieve now. Not a great deal of money; just the change left over from what Mrs. Smith had given her. There was something papery in her pocket, however, and Mariam suddenly remembered what it was.

When she’d been searching the kitchen, she’d found a photograph in a previously jammed drawer underneath a mess of rubber bands, tape dispensers, paper clips, and other miscellaneous items. It showed a picture of two girls, one about four and one who looked to be a couple of years younger. On the back it said _Clare and Aimee – 2002_. Clare was the eldest child of the Smiths. Mariam didn’t know who Aimee was, but she presumed she was a cousin of some sort, given the strong family resemblance.

She didn’t recall seeing Aimee in any of the other family photos, nor had an Aimee been mentioned in the brief time Mariam had worked for the Smiths. However, that mystery was going to have to wait for another time, given that it didn’t help with the current situation. And unfortunately, she didn’t have anything else in her pockets.

“Hey, hey,” Mariam said to the woman in the passenger’s seat. “You with me?” She’d spoken in English, and then fretted that maybe the woman didn’t know English. She was just about to try Arabic and French when the woman stirred.

“Ugh,” the woman said. “Bad.”

“I’m going to take you to the hospital,” Mariam said. She tried to think where the closest hospital was. She was decently familiar with Jacksonville, Florida after having lived there for two years, but she hadn’t ever needed serious medical care in that time. “But then I’ve got to bolt. Are you going to be okay? Look, I’m sorry, but I need to…ugh! I don’t even know what I’m going to do!”

“Go to Home Depot,” the woman muttered weakly.

“What?” Mariam asked. It was not the response she was expecting. Home Depot was a hardware store that sold everything from lumber to plants to ceiling fans, none of which would be any use in a medical emergency.

Next to her, the woman struggled to sit up straight. “Head west on 10. Bolt cutters.” She held up her hands, showing the length of chain that trailed from each wrist. “Need…to get…the…iron off.” She let her wrists collapse.

“I really should take you to the hospital,” Mariam said.

“Please!” the woman implored. She said the word with as much force as she could muster and then didn’t say anything else. Her breathing was very weak.

Mariam bit her lip. Maybe it was some kind of allergic reaction. If she took the woman to the hospital, they’d take the chains off, but, Mariam reasoned, they probably wouldn’t do it right away. She thought again of what she’d glimpsed of the woman’s body before she’d covered it with the coat. Quite possibly the hospital staff would focus on that first. Coming to a decision, she headed West on I-10.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Mariam said after they arrive at the Home Depot. The woman didn’t respond, and that made things more difficult. Mariam drove around the parking lot a bit until she found a spot in the shade. Then she rolled down the windows so that the car wouldn’t overheat. If the woman had been conscious, Mariam would have left the car running with the A/C on, but with the woman unconscious, there was a risk of the car being stolen if she did that.

Inside the Home Depot, among the towering aisles under the high ceiling, Mariam found the bolt cutters as quickly as she could and paid with some of the cash she had left over from paying for the cab ride. Then she returned to the car. Taking the woman’s wrists one at a time, she carefully cut the chains off of her. They fell to the floor with a clank. Mariam scooped them up and threw them in the backseat.

A minute passed, and then the woman began to revive. Her skin, which had been a pale, sickly looking brown, darkened and took on an almost orangish hue. She shifted in the seat, and the coat that was covering her slipped down to the floor. Mariam immediately went to retrieve it and then stopped. The woman was now wearing a green dress that looked like it was made of dozens of spade-shaped leaves stitched together. Mariam stared at her.

“Thank you,” said the woman. “I feel much better.”

“But…how…” Mariam sputtered.

“Magic,” explained the woman, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. As soon as she said the word, her hair, which had been the same limp pale brown color that her skin had been, turned a rich purple-black. Her eyes, which had been the same tepid brown, begin to change color. Her irises whited to the palest purple, while her pupils darkened to a deep pink-purple. The shape of her pupils changed, as well, so that they were not a circle but an imperfect pentagon shape. 

“Oh, right, magic, of course,” Mariam said. She thought she might be in shock. Pastor Lance regularly warned against magic in his Sunday Sermons, along with invocations to steer clear of homosexuality, abortion, feminism, liberalism, and the general fallen sinful world. But while Mariam had encountered – in her journey through the fallen world – homosexuality, abortion, feminism, liberalism, and generalized sin, she’d never seen anyone do actual magic before. Certainly not like what she was experiencing right now. And yet, here she was. Her mind blanking on anything better to say, Mariam asked, “Should I take you to the hospital now?”

“Whatever so for?” asked the woman.

“You don’t have a bellybutton!” Mariam blurted out. “And…um…”

“Nipples?” the woman suggested, arching an eyebrow. Mariam looked at the woman’s chest and then quickly away again. Her bosom was much fuller now than it had been when Mariam had first rescued her.

“And also, ah…”

“Genitalia?”

“Right,” Mariam said. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to look or anything, but you were so naked. But, yes. You looked like a barbie doll.”

“It’s all right,” the woman said. “I have nipples and genitalia now. I can even have a bellybutton, if you’d like, although honestly I don’t usually bother with that. No fun in a bellybutton, you know?”

“Why…what…”

“I’m a fairy,” the woman explained. “Call me Sweet Potato.”

“I’m Mariam Saleh. Um, pleasure to meet you.”

“This is that warlock’s car, isn’t it?” Sweet Potato asked.

Mariam nodded. “It belongs to Mr. Smith, yes.”

“How do you know him?”

“He’s my employer. Well, former employer, at this point. I am – was – the family’s au pair. Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

Sweet Potato placed a comforting hand on Mariam’s own. The touch sent a jolt through Mariam’s body, but that wasn’t related to magic. She’d felt that before, when other pretty girls had touched her hand. (And Sweet Potato, now revived, was very pretty.) She considered moving her hand, but she didn’t want to.

“You risked a great deal to save me. I will protect you to the extent that I can. Once I’ve dealt with that warlock and the Tyrant that he serves, I’ll help you get your life back in order. Now, the first thing we need to do is disguise the car.”

Opening the passenger’s side door, Sweet Potato slipped out, breaking her hand’s contact with Mariam’s hand as she did so. Mariam left the car herself and found Sweet Potato staring at the license plate in the back.

“What are you going to do?”

“Glamor it,” Sweet Potato said. She gingerly touched the license plate. It blurred and then displayed a different set of numbers and letters.

Mariam giggled from nerves. Here it was again, magic happening right where she could see it. It was one thing to listen to Pastor Lance’s sermons and only half-believe. It was another thing entirely to have a fairy doing spells right before her eyes in the parking lot of Home Depot. It occurred to her that to disbelieve at this point would make her worse than Doubting Thomas. Pastor Lance had also warned against willful obstinance, although he’d done so in the context of respecting a man’s rightful place as head of the family.

“Would you be willing to glamor the rest?” Sweet Potato asked.

“What?”

“The frame’s got iron in it,” Sweet Potato explained. “I can’t do nothing there, but you’re mortal, and mortals can do magic on iron. Thank you, translunification.”

“I don’t support alternate lifestyles that aren’t in accordance with God’s will,” Mariam answered automatically before flushing as her mind finished processing what Sweet Potato had actually said. She fumbled for her next words. “And I shouldn’t be doing magic, either! Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.”

“You’re a magician, actually,” Sweet Potato said, “and you already did magic, back when you broke my chains.”

“Sinning once doesn’t mean that you should sin again,” Mariam answered primly. “Why don’t I just buy paint from Home Depot and paint the car?”

“You got half a grand on you?” Sweet Potato asked.

“Is car paint really that expensive?”

“Ayup.”

“Oh.”

“In that case, I’m going to use the bolt cutters to disable the car’s GPS system. Why don’t you grab us something to eat from the Hardees across the street?”

“What would you like?” Mariam asked.

“Any sort of baked bread and cream, please.”

“You want a coffee with cream?” Mariam asked, confused.

“No, just cream,” Sweet Potato clarified. “Just grab me a dozen of those little containers of cream. It’s not the best stuff, but it’ll do.”

When Mariam returned, Sweet Potato had torn open the front center of the car and was carefully snipping wires. Mariam was afraid to break her concentration, so she stood there with a croissant and the bag of cream containers until Sweet Potato finished.

“There,” Sweet Potato said finally. “GPS is out.” She glanced up at Mariam. “Oh, thank you so much.” Wiping her hands on her dress, she devoured the croissant and then, one by one, drank the cream containers. “Oh, that hits the spot,” she said. “Nothing like bread and cream. ‘Cept maybe morning dew, but there’s no chance of getting any of that until tomorrow. Did you get yourself anything?”

Mariam shook her head. “I ran out of money.”

“You need to eat,” Sweet Potato said.

“Well, I’m not going to steal,” Mariam said hotly.

“You stole this car,” Sweet Potato pointed out.

“That’s different,” Mariam said. “I needed to rescue you.”

“Fair enough,” Sweet Potato said. “Okay, follow me. I’ll do what I can.”

Mariam followed Sweet Potato to the grass by their parking spot. She placed both hands on the ground and closed her eyes. As Mariam watched, vines sprouted out of the ground. After a few minutes of this, Sweet Potato opened her eyes and begin digging in the ground.

“Catch,” she said and tossed a sweet potato to Mariam. It was covered with dirt and bits of root. This sweet potato was followed by a second one, and then Sweet Potato began plucking the tender young leaves, which were more purple than green. Now that Mariam saw the sweet potato plant up close, she realized that the leaf pattern of Sweet Potato’s dress was that of sweet potato leaves.

“Can I eat these raw?” Mariam asked.

“Yes,” Sweet Potato said. “But we’ll want to wash everything first, and we’ll need to peel and cut the sweet potatoes. I believe that the Home Depot bathroom will serve out purpose there. Bring the bolt cutters, so we can use them as a peeler. The receipt, too, so they know you didn’t steal them.”

It was an awkward task, and the meal it produced was hardly gourmet. The young leaves didn’t taste half bad – almost like lettuce – but the raw sweet potato settled heavily in her stomach. Still, it was sustenance. After Mariam had eaten, they returned to the Mercedes-Benz and got on the road again.

“Which direction should I head?” Mariam asked.

“South on 17,” Sweet Potato instructed. “I’ll navigate you to Rock Springs at Kelly Park. Should take us about two and a half hours.”

“What’s there?” Mariam asked.

“The entrance to Fairyland that we want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was a child, my mom worked at Home Depot, and there were many times where my siblings and I were left to entertain ourselves at the store while she finished a work shift or what have you. With all the childish games of make believe played in its aisles, Home Depot has always had a place in my memories as a deeply magical location.


	3. Chapter 3

Mariam’s day had begun at 6:00 A.M. sharp, and she had expected it to be spent on her search for her pilfered passport. Now it was 10:09 A.M., and Mariam was driving toward the entrance to Fairyland. It was not what she had expected, but apparently it was just how it was going to be. Although, in spite of what she was taught, she was curious about Sweet Potato. The fairy wasn’t like anyone Mariam had ever met before, and magic held an appeal as forbidden as…

Mariam cut that thought off before it could form. She decided to sate her curiosity about magic, instead.

“What’s the difference between a witch and a magician?” she asked as she drove. There weren’t very many cars on the highway. Mariam stuck to the right lane, going exactly one mile per hour under the speed limit. It would be no good for them to get pulled over by a cop.

“Magic’s hard to come by in the mortal realm,” Sweet Potato explained, “but it’s not impossible. Witches draw their magic from nature, they tend to be good with plants and animals. They’re fond of herbs and potions, often. Magicians use magical artifacts.”

“Like candles and whirligigs hung from the ceiling?” Mariam asked.

“And magic wands or staffs and pentacles and so forth,” Sweet Potato explained. “Half of it’s psychological, but not all of it. Enchanters and enchantresses are those who put magic in things. A magician can channel using a souvenir wand they got at the Tampa Bay Renaissance Faire magic show, but they’ll be able to do more if that wand were enchanted first.”

“Are there other classes?” Mariam asked.

“Sorcerers and sorceresses draw their magic from the raw elements,” Sweet Potato said. “The Tyrant is a sorceress. The generic term is wizardry. Mind you, this is just how the Flowered Kingdom in Fairyland categorizes things. Go a few kingdoms over, and you’ll find them calling magicians wizards and witches enchanters and enchantresses.”

“What about Mr. Smith? You called him a warlock. What’s makes him one?”

“He’s a prick.”

That got a startled laugh out of Mariam, and Sweet Potato grinned.

“It’s just an insult?” Mariam asked.

“Uh huh,” Sweet Potato said, “and that one’s near universal terminology. The warlocks were a secret organization way back when. Nasty lot. There aren’t any more warlocks nowadays, although that bastard seems to be channeling their look. They were really into black robes – and blood sacrifice. You can accomplish a lot if you’re wicked enough to murder a lot of people.” Mariam shuddered at that.

“What determines if a person is a witch or a magician or whatnot?”

“Aptitude, mostly. People tend to gravitate toward one class or the other. But there’s no rule that says a wizard can only be one class: it’s just hard. Like being both good at football and good at piano.”

“Okay, next question,” Mariam asked. “Can you look like anything you want?”

“As long as there’s not iron on me, pretty much. But this is sort of, I’d guess you’d call it my default look. More or less, I mean.”

“Could you be a man?” Mariam asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sweet Potato arch an eyebrow at her.

“I could make myself look like a man, yes,” Sweet Potato said, “but I’d still be a woman. I’m always a woman, even if I swap around the parts. I don’t do that, usually, though. As I said, I enjoy having-” Mariam’s face went hot then, so Sweet Potato didn’t finish the statement.

“Switching topics now,” Mariam said hastily. “What’s trans, um, whatever it was you said.”

“Translunification,” Sweet Potato said. “You humans literally bleed iron, but you’ve adapted to do magic.”

“Oh? And what do you bleed?”

“Moonlight, like a sensible person,” Sweet Potato answered. She grinned to show that she meant no insult.

“You said adapted,” Mariam said. “What, like evolution?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s weirdly, um, scientific.” Mariam’s church taught that evolution was a lie, but Mariam had gotten a secular education in both Irbid and Paris. Her parents hadn’t been happy about that, but the Church hadn’t had a religious school in those cities. Her parents had decided that it was better for Mariam to go to a secular school than to a religious school that taught heresy. Mariam found her stomach doing flip-flops whenever what she’d learned in school didn’t mesh with what the Church taught, leaving her to muddle through the best she could. It didn’t help that nearly all her classmates had been either Muslim or Catholic and thus, according to her Church’s teaching, Bound for Hell. It just seemed so cruel.

“Why not?” Sweet Potato asked. “Everything that exists is just quarks and leptons and empty space when you get down to it.”

“I don’t know,” Mariam said. “I just thought that there’d be more mysticism to it.”

“There is,” Sweet Potato said, “but if you break mysticism down enough, you’re back to quarks and leptons and empty space.”

“So, magic’s just…”

“Energy,” Sweet Potato explained. “It’s just energy that can be tapped and controlled. There’s so much energy in a…a…a drop of water. Enough energy to destroy the world, easily. It’s just a matter of harnessing it and controlling it.”

“I’d never thought about it that way,” Mariam said. “What are we going to do when we get to Fairyland?”

“Look up an old friend of mine. Although, look, you really don’t need to get mixed up in all of this further. Is there someplace I can drop you off where you’d be safe for a while?”

Mariam shook her head. “Mr. Smith and I belong to the same Church. The only family I know is in Paris.” She felt tears start to well up in her eyes and rapidly blinked them away. “You’re fairly well stuck with me.”

“Shit. I’m sorry you got involved with all this,” Sweet Potato said guiltily.

“Don’t be,” Mariam insisted. “So, you’re going to look up an old friend in Fairyland.”

“Right. I need a Hero, and he can provide me with a list.”

“A Hero?” The capitol letter was audible.

“Like, uh, King Arthur. In times of peril, some people can be counted on to rise up and defeat the evil. Someone’s got to stop the Tyrant. A human someone, I mean. I tried.”

“This didn’t work out for King Arthur,” Mariam pointed out. (She’d seen the Merlin miniseries staring Sam Neill many times. The True Path Baptist Church permitted it because it was about the triumph of Christianity over Paganism and also because Pastor Lance had a bit role as soldier in King Vortigern’s army.)

“Sometimes it doesn’t,” Sweet Potato conceded, “but a Hero has a better chance against the Tyrant than anyone else.”

“So, who is this Tyrant?”

“An awful woman. She rules the Flowered Kingdom with an iron fist. When I confronted her, she got iron on me and then handed me over to her pet warlock.” Sweet Potato shuddered. “It was a bit hazy with the iron on me, but I think he was trying to find a way to do away with me.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Mariam asked.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” Mariam insisted.

“This is liable to be dangerous,” Sweet Potato warned. “The Tyrant isn’t someone to be trifled with.”

Mariam swallowed hard, but she nodded. “I understand. I still want to help. Even if there was somewhere you could drop me, I’d just spend the whole time worrying about you. And I hate the thought of being in the middle of it and being useless.”

“Very well. If you can safely drive one handed, let me see your dominant hand.”

Mariam was right-handed, so she kept her left hand on the steering wheel and held out her right hand. Out of the corner of her eye – she was doing her best to keep her eyes on the road – she saw Sweet Potato peering at it. Finally, Sweet Potato let her hand drop, and Mariam returned it to its place on the wheel.

“What?” Mariam asked.

“You’re not a Hero.”

“Thanks,” Mariam said dryly. “No pulling swords out of the stone for me, I guess.” She gave a somewhat forced chuckle.

Sweet Potato grimaced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. What I mean is, you’re not the type of person who becomes, say, president.”

“Yeah, I’m not a citizen, let alone one by birth, and also, I’m pretty sure ICE is actively hunting me by this point.”

“But even if you were and they weren’t,” Sweet Potato said, “that’s not the kind of person you are. You won’t ever be a CEO, either. There’s nothing wrong with that! It’s just not the way you’re wired.”

“I don’t have a Type A personality, you’re saying?”

“Uh huh,” Sweet Potato said. “And think about it, would you want those things that I described? Or to be the King of Briton?”

“No,” Mariam answered immediately. “Too much stress. So, there’s nothing I can do to help? I really do hate feeling like dead weight.”

“You aren’t!” Sweet Potato insisted. “You’ve been extremely useful already. If not for you, I’d still be in the hands of that man.”

“So, what can I do?”

Sweet Potato pressed her lips together. “You are a magician, even if you aren’t a Hero.”

Mariam gave a bit of an involuntary shudder and then steeled herself and came to a decision. “I’m really not supposed to, but-” She slapped the steering wheel of the stolen vehicle she was driving. “In for a penny, in for a pound, huh?”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Okay, let’s go find this Hero, shall we?”

“Thank you,” Sweet Potato said. “I greatly appreciate the help. And the company.”

Sweet Potato gave Mariam a warm smile then, and butterflies swarmed about in Mariam’s stomach. She forced herself to look at the road ahead and nowhere else. _The Church_ , she reminded herself. But even as she did that, the thought floated into her head that if _this_ magic really was just leptons and energy, it might be okay. After all, Pastor Lance had never preached against leptons before.

“So, what about you?” Sweet Potato asked. “What’s your story?”

“I was born in Irbid. My parents grew up there, too. They both met Pastor Lance in college, and he convinced them to convert to the True Path Baptist Church.”

“Rea-lly?” Sweet Potato asked, stretching the word out so that it had more syllables than it should, conveying an abundance of skepticism as she did so. “Would be the most successful college preacher, in that case.”

“Mom doesn’t talk about it much,” Mariam elaborated, feeling rather defensive, “but I think she sort of had some issues with her parents before that. I don’t really know the details. And Dad’s always saying that the Catholic Church isn’t holy.” He tended to mutter it, actually, in rather ominous tones. Mariam had never even met her extended family on either side and didn’t know much about them other than that they were all Catholic.

“So, you were raised in the Church?” Sweet Potato asked.

“Yeah,” Mariam said. “I mean, we’re Baptist, obviously. I think I was, what, six when I formed my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Anyway, when I was eleven, Mom and Dad moved us to Paris.”

“What for? Work?”

“Uh huh,” Mariam said. “They both felt Called to be Witnesses to the Heretics. Anyway, I’m hoping-” She paused, forced down the sudden emotions that had swollen up, and continued. “I was hoping, had been hoping, to get into one of the colleges here in the U.S. Easier to do if you’re fluent in English. The True Path Baptist Church is based out of Jacksonville, Florida, and there was a couple in the Church who needed an au pair, so Pastor Lance made the arrangements. But then the couple had to move for work reasons, so I ended up with the Smiths, who are a massively messed up family, let me tell you.”

Sweet Potato grimaced. “If Chad’s anything to go on, I’ll take your word for it.”

“Chad?” Mariam asked.

“The warlock,” Sweet Potato explained. “Chad Smith.”

“Huh,” Mariam said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone use his first name before. Mrs. Smith addresses him as Father, the same as the boys.”

“ _He’s_ got a Type A personality,” Sweet Potato said, and Mariam laughed.

Sweet Potato’s directions became more frequent as the neared Kelly Park, which was in one of the more rural areas of Florida. As they had exactly zero dollars on them, Sweet Potato directed Mariam to park the Mercedes-Benz off the road in the woods. They immediately ran into the problem that the Mercedes-Benz was not an off-road vehicle.

“Go ahead and turned the engine off,” Sweet Potato instructed.

“What? With one wheel in the woods and the rest on the road?”

“I’m going to move it with magic.”

“Let me get out in that case.”

Both Mariam and Sweet Potato got out. Mariam wondered how Sweet Potato was going to magic the car – given that the body included iron – but she soon understood. Sweet Potato wasn’t going to magic the vehicle itself. Much like she’d done in the grass by the Home Depot parking lot, Sweet Potato pressed her hands against the ground. As Mariam watched, vines grew from the earth. They weren’t thick, but there was a great many of them this time. The vines snaked under the Mercedes-Benz, lifted it up, and began carrying it into the woods. Mariam moved so that she could see ahead of the car, which gave her a view of more and more vines coming up out of the ground to move the Mercedes-Benz deeper and deeper into the woods. Once it was safely tucked away, Sweet Potato stood up and brushed her hands.

“You hungry?” Sweet Potato asked Mariam.

“Not especially,” Mariam asked.

“Okay,” Sweet Potato said. “I’ll warn you now. Don’t eat anything in Fairyland.”

“What? Why not?”

“Fairyland food binds humans to Fairyland,” Sweet Potato explained. “We shouldn’t be there more than a few hours, and if all goes according to plan, we’ll have funds on our exit.”

“How so?” Mariam asked.

“The old friend of mine,” Sweet Potato said. “Not only will he be able to get us a list of prospective Heroes, but he can also fund our project. Lord knows he’s not hurting for money. Which is good because you are going to need food later and the car’s going to need gas before too long.”

“Where is the entrance to Fairyland, anyway,” Mariam asked.

“At the source of the spring,” Sweet Potato said. “Follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rock Springs at Kelly Park is a real location, and I spent many happy warm summer days there when I was a child. Alas, the Flowered Kingdom and Fairyland are fictional.


	4. Chapter 4

It was not a far walk from where they had parked the car to Kelly Park and within it, Rock Springs. Mariam was jumpy the entire way, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. After a few minutes, as they tread a by no means empty boardwalk that cut through tall trees, she broached the subject with Sweet Potato.

“Are you, what was it, glamoring us?” she asked.

“Uh huh,” Sweet Potato said.

Mariam’s eyes flitted briefly to Sweet Potato’s chest before she forced them to stare directly in front of her. “Is glamoring a matter of illusion or shape-shifting? Sometimes it seems like one, and sometimes it seems like the other.”

“It’s a little of both,” Sweet Potato explained. “I could make someone think I’m fifty feet tall, but I couldn’t be fifty feet tall without bringing in a lot of matter from elsewhere, and that could get messy. But I could make myself a little bit taller at the cost of being a little bit thinner.”

“Why don’t you?” Mariam asked. Now that she and Sweet Potato were walking side by side, Mariam could see that she was nearly a full head taller than Sweet Potato – and Mariam was only average height herself.

“What’s wrong with being the height I am?” Sweet Potato asked.

“Nothing, I suppose,” Mariam said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“All in forgiven,” Sweet Potato said immediately. They walked on a bit further and then stopped when they came to the start of the springs. There was a wide, deep area of water that gurgled as the water came up out of the ground. Throughout were the large, smoothed down rocks that gave the springs its name. In some places, the rocks were only inches below the surface of the water. White sand lay at the bottom. To the left, the stream continued down at a fast pace, as evidence by the swimmers and innertubers going merrily along their way. To their right was an area blocked off by a string of buoys.

“Right?” Mariam guessed.

“Right,” Sweet Potato confirmed. “And then down. Can you swim?”

“I’m not great, but yeah,” Mariam said. “Pastor Lance’s wife gave me lessons when I got here. The first family I was an au pair for had a pool, so it was a safety concern.”

“How long can you hold your breath?”

“I’m not sure, maybe a minute?”

“Okay, I’m thinking I should tie you to me and then kiss you.”

“WHAT?” Mariam felt like her entire body was hot, from her forehead right down to her toes.

“The current’s pretty strong,” Sweet Potato elaborated. “If I use some sweet potato vines to tie you to me, you won’t be swept away. And ‘kiss’ might not be the exact right word. I’m not human. I inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, although I can go a lot longer without carbon dioxide than you can oxygen. If I breath into your mouth, you won’t suffocate before we get to Fairyland. If you were a stronger swimmer, I wouldn’t bother, but I don’t want to risk drowning you.”

“Oh,” Mariam said. She felt slightly less hot. “Oh. I imagine if it’s not really a kiss, that’s all right.”

It took Sweet Potato no time at all to produce enough sweet potato vines to bind Mariam’s left wrist to Sweet Potato’s right wrist and her right wrist to Sweet Potato’s left wrist with about two feet of slack between them. Mariam stood patiently still while Sweet Potato worked with the vines. It was an experience unlike Mariam had ever had before, and she felt her face growing hot. She was enjoying it! She was fairly certain that she should not enjoy the sensation of being tied up. She tried to think if Pastor Lance had had any sermons on the matter and flushed further. There were some topics too delicate to even be condemned.

Mariam was relieved when she and Sweet Potato slipped into the water together. Being a spring, the water hadn’t warmed in the April sun like a lake might have. The water was a crisp 70 degrees Fahrenheit and cooled Mariam down immediately.

Once in the water, Mariam immediately started to drift downstream, as well as sink. Her dress was of a light cotton material, and her sandals weren’t the worst shoes to wear in the water – but for swimming, she would have been better suited if she’d had neither. Sweet Potato, however, proved to be a more powerful swimmer. She kicked her legs to stay in one place and then pulled Mariam to her.

“Wrap your arms around my shoulders,” Sweet Potato instructed. “Don’t worry; you won’t pull me under.”

Mariam did as she was bidden, which brought her chest right flush up against Sweet Potato’s chest. Once again, Mariam was thankful for the chill of the water. Then she remembered that they were going to almost-kiss next, and even the spring water was insufficient to prevent her from feeling like she was burning up.

“Open your mouth a bit,” Sweet Potato said. “We’ll need our lips to be sealed so that no water comes in. I want you to get used to breathing through your mouth, and then I’ll take us under.”

Mariam nodded and then parted her lips. When Sweet Potato’s lips met her own, she nearly went into a daze. In fact, it took her a moment to remember to breathe – and then another moment to remember to breathe in and out through her mouth, not her nose.

The water was crystal clear when they went under. Sweet Potato kicked with strong legs and used her arms to maneuver them to back behind the buoys. Once they were behind them, Sweet Potato took them both down and down.

It was strange. Mariam was sure they’d gone deeper than the springs had been, but after the first ten feet or so, the water pressure didn’t seem to increase at all. Sweet Potato’s breath was sweet in her mouth, her lips were soft against Mariam’s lips.

Eventually, their descent stopped, although Mariam could see no bottom. Nor could she see how far from the surface they were, since to look around would be to break the seal of their lips. Sweet Potato began to lead them up again, and warmth sprayed on Mariam’s head as she broke through the surface of the water again. It was only then that Sweet Potato moved her lips away from Mariam’s.

Sweet Potato maneuvered both of them to land, and Mariam got her first look at Fairyland. The Rock Springs of Fairyland looked very much like the Rock Springs of the mortal realm. All the rocks were still in the same place, as were the trees. The stream still continued on down at a fast pace. But the line of buoys was gone. There were no other people to be seen. There were no innertubes, and there was not a speck of trash anywhere.

There was, however, a canoe tied to a rock. That hadn’t had a counterpart in the mortal realm. Sweet Potato led Mariam over to it. Before they got in, Sweet Potato undid one of the sweet potato vine ropes. However, she left the other in place.

“I’ll remove this one when we get a bit downstream,” she explained. “I shouldn’t expect us to tip, but if we do, the water’s a bit deep at the start of the springs. Once we get down a bit, though, it gets really shallow, so even if you went in, you wouldn’t drown.”

“That’s fine,” Mariam said. They both climbed into the boat together, and Mariam sat down right away on one of the benches. “Might be hard to paddle, though.” There were two paddles in the canoe. Sweet Potato took one of them and untied the rope from the rock.

“You don’t need to worry about paddling,” Sweet Potato said. “At least not until we get to the frolicking area. The current’s enough that all I’ll need to do is steer.”

With that, they were away. Mariam – because she was facing Sweet Potato – had her back to the direction they were going and so saw the scenery go by as they passed it. It was a lovely sight. The stream was quite narrow, generally less than fifteen feet across. The water was crystal clear, and small tributaries joined up as various points. The bottom was sandy, and large trees crowded the shore. There were fish and turtles and even a few alligators. Mariam reflected that it was her first time since coming to Florida that she’d seen an alligator in the wild, as opposed to in a swimming pool or on a golf course. Then she remembered that she wasn’t in Florida. That prompted a thought.

“Can all fairies come to the mortal realm?” she asked.

“More or less,” Sweet Potato answered. “There are some restrictions. I’m no go in places with cold weather, for instance.”

“Then why has no one from the, what did you say this place was?”

“The Flowered Kingdom. Maps almost exactly onto the state of Florida in the mortal realm.”

“Why has no one from the Flowered Kingdom ever tried to take over Florida?”

Sweet Potato chuckled. “You ever been to Inverness?”

“Inverness, Inverness, wait, isn’t that near Gainesville?”

“It is. You ever been there?”

“No, why would I go to Inverness?”

“There. You have your answer.”

Mariam made a face. “Is the mortal realm really all that bad?”

Sweet Potato laughed. “Not on its own merits. But it’s absolutely riddled with iron. Mind you, fairies from Fairyland do go to the mortal realm on occasion. Hamelin’s a pretty famous example. Nasty business, that.”

“And humans don’t try to conquer Fairyland because they don’t know about it?” Mariam guessed.

“Oh, they do sometimes,” Sweet Potato said. “The Tyrant is a human.”

“Really!”

“Uh huh,” Sweet Potato said, “but it’s just her and that warlock, mostly. You can’t move an army if you can’t feed ‘em, and I told you about the food here.”

“So, the two realms stay separate,” Mariam said. “Except for in stories.”

“Speaking of stories,” Sweet Potato said with a grin. “Turn around. Actually, let me untie you first. Sorry, we got to talking, and I forgot.”

“It’s all right,” Mariam muttered. She found she didn’t mind in the least being tied to Sweet Potato. Setting the paddle down, Sweet Potato undid the vine rope, and Mariam turned around. They were just coming into a wide, shallow area where the current was lessened. And there, standing in the shallows, were a herd of unicorns.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the month of March, the chapters will go up weekly.

“Those are unicorns,” Mariam said breathlessly.

“Uh huh,” said Sweet Potato.

“Actual, real live unicorns. With horns and everything!”

“Usually only the males have horns, actually. Come on. Help me paddle to shore.”

Mariam had only been canoeing once before, so she wasn’t terribly good at paddling. It did not help that she couldn’t take her eyes off the herd. She scarcely dared to breathe, lest she startle the herd. She was relieved when the unicorns – and she could see now that some of them didn’t have horns, after all – shifted in the shallows so that they could dock their boat on the shore. She had usually seen unicorns depicted as all white, but the herd was every color that horses came in.

No soon had they clamored out that a pure black stallion burst out of the water and pranced over to them. He tossed his head, stamped his feet, and neighed like a tinkling of bells. Then he came over to Mariam and nuzzled what would have been her lap if she’d been sitting down. With a trembling, hesitant hand, she reached out to stroke his mane.

“Virgin, are you?” Sweet Potato asked slyly.

“What?” Mariam squeaked.

“The stallions like virgins,” Sweet Potato said. “Well, it’s usually virgins. They have to lay their head in the lap of someone who’s never been in love to be able to sire a foal.”

“I am,” Mariam admitted. “And I haven’t. But if I had…would he not come near me like this?” It was a depressing thought, and one which made Mariam strongly consider if falling in love was worth it. The unicorn was a beautiful creature.

Sweet Potato laughed. “You don’t need to worry about that. This is Gerard. Been in love or not, he’s pretty amicable, provided you’re not a jerk.” She addressed Gerard directly. “Good sir, would you be so kind as to carry myself and this maiden here to Tom’s house?” Gerard stepped back from Mariam with some reluctance, stamped a hoof, and snorted. Sweet Potato smiled and thanked him.

“He can carry both of us?” Mariam asked.

“Oh, no trouble,” Sweet Potato said. “The bigger issue is your dress. You ever ridden side saddle before?” Mariam shook her head. She’d only been on horseback twice in her life (if ponies counted) and never side saddle. “Then I’ll put you in front of me and hold you.”

Mariam started to point out that Sweet Potato was also wearing a dress, but she realized that Sweet Potato’s clothes had changed without Mariam noticing. Now she was wearing pants and a blouse, although they were the same leaf pattern as her dress had been.

Sweet Potato had to jump to get up on Gerard’s back, but she seemed perfectly poised once she was up. Then she reached down a hand and easily pulled Mariam up in front of her, situating her so that she was sitting side saddle. Mariam was beginning to appreciate how strong Sweet Potato really was, despite her small stature. To keep Mariam stable, Sweet Potato wrapped her hands around Mariam’s waist. That made Mariam start to feel dizzy, so she took hold of Gerard’s mane with both hands. Sweet Potato kept her balance on Gerard with her legs, and once they were both secure, he set off at a good trot. After a few minutes of that, he sped up, so that the forest fled past in a blur of green.

“He’s showing off,” Sweet Potato said in a stage whisper to Mariam. “He likes to put on a good show for virgins.”

Gerard snorted in response to that, but he didn’t slow his speed.

“So, Gerard’s going to be able to sire a foal after this?” Mariam asked. “Just because he nuzzled me?”

“Uh huh,” Sweet Potato said. “People who haven’t been in love put off a certain, um, residual magical energy. You don’t notice at all, obviously, but he honed right in on it. He absorbed some of that. Later tonight, he’ll be off to attract a mare, won’t you, Gerard?”

Gerard neighed in response to that, which Mariam took to be the affirmative.

“Have you ever been in love?” Mariam asked and then felt herself blushing.

“Yes,” Sweet Potato said. “Lucky for unicorns, they live a long time and so don’t have to reproduce often.”

“Ah.”

They rode in silence then until Gerard stopped in front of a picturesque cottage. In fact, it looked rather like one of the paintings that Mrs. Smith had on the kitchen wall in the penthouse. The painting wasn’t an actual Thomas Kinkade piece, but it looked similar. And if Thomas Kinkade had an architecture counterpart, he might have built the cottage. Mariam and Sweet Potato dismounted, and Sweet Potato gave Gerard an affectionate slap on the flank.

“Stick around, will you? It’ll make getting back easier.”

Gerard neighed and nodded his head. Then he began to chew on the grass in front of the cottage. Now that Mariam thought about it, the cottage was wilder than Kinkade usually went in for. Instead of a carefully manicured lawn, the foliage in front of the house was a mixture of wild grass and weeds.

Sweet Potato strode over to the door, and Mariam followed her. The fairy gave a firm knock on the door. It opened, and Mariam caught a brief glimpse of a thoroughly naked man before he saw her and slammed it shut again.

“Damn it, Sweet Potato!” the inhabitant of the house shouted. “Warn me when you’re brining a mortal with you, will ya?”

Sweet Potato flushed and shot an apologetic glance at Mariam. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s been a while since I brought a mortal around. Well, except for- never mind. But she didn’t mind the, uh, disinterest in clothing.”

The door opened again, and the man inside was now wearing a cheap suit. He looked like a used car salesman. He stuck out a hand, “Tom Tittot,” he said. He pronounced his name Tit-tot. He was pale, with dark hair. Running down the center of him, from the top of his head to, well, the tip of his head (as Mariam had briefly seen), was a line of gold stitches, as if he’d been bisected clear in half and then put back together.

Mariam shook his hand. “Mariam Saleh.”

“Come on inside. Are you hungry?”

“Um, Sweet Potato said-”

“Never you mind that.” Tom disappeared inside in the house, and at Sweet Potato’s urging, Mariam followed. It was as cluttered inside as the yard was wild outside. There was a sagging couch facing a puppet stand. A door of to the side led to a hallway. There was a door directly across the hall that led to what looked to be a kitchen with a fireplace, which Tom had gone into. A spinning wheel was shoved in the corner behind the couch, and there was a barrel full of straw next to it. Overhead was a bright light. Mariam looked at it curiously.

“Copper wiring,” Sweet Potato explained. “We’ve had electricity for ages.”

Tom returned from the kitchen holding a Publix sub wrapped in plastic and a sealed bottle of Dasani water. He held both out to Mariam. Of all the things she’d expected to encounter in the realm of the fairies, a sandwich from Florida’s ubiquitous supermarket hadn’t even made the list.

“Really, it’s okay,” Mariam said. “I ate some sweet potato earlier.”

“Did you now?” Tom asked, and Mariam flushed at his insinuating tone. Sweet Potato gave a chuckle, as well. Then she took the food and drink from Tom and handed it to Mariam.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“But you said-”

“Not to eat fairy food. And you shouldn’t. But this is from the mortal realm. Tom, ah, associates with mortals regularly.”

“That I do,” Tom said. “Keep the fridge right stocked. So, you eat up, my dear, while Sweet Potato explains how come she’s not dead. I heard Her Majesty had handed you over to that bastard in the black robes. I wasn’t expecting to see you back so soon.”

“Mariam saved me,” Sweet Potato said proudly. “So here I am. Tom, I need a list of Heroes.”

Tom’s face froze. “I ain’t in for sedition.”

“I didn’t ask you to commit sedition,” Sweet Potato said smoothly. “I asked for a list of Heroes.”

“That’s sedition, if I give it to you. Could give it to her-” Here Tom jerked a thumb at Mariam “-but she’d have to pay for it.”

“I will pay for it,” Sweet Potato said sharply.

“No can do,” Tom said. “Some of us can’t just grow back limbs that offend Her Majesty, and I’ve got enough stitches, don’t you think?”

“Tom, be reasonable-”

“I’d rather be smart.”

“Tom-”

“Did you hear what happened to Robin?” Tom interrupted.

Sweet Potato frowned. “No,” she said finally. “Is he okay?”

“He’s alive. I heard Ratcatcher pulled him out. But Her Majesty had that damn warlock of hers make him dance in iron shoes! Over a prank!”

“Oh God!” Mariam exclaimed, remembering the effect iron had had on Sweet Potato.

“Yep,” Tom said. “He switched her sugar for salt, and there you go. I could hear the screaming from here.” His whole body shook with a shudder.

“Her pet warlock won’t be around forever,” Sweet Potato argued.

“Perhaps not, but _she_ will.” At Tom’s words, Sweet Potato didn’t respond but instead pressed her lips together, so Tom continued speaking. “Either Mariam pays or nothing.”

Before the argument could proceed further, there came a blast of trumpets and a sharp knock on the door, and a voice proclaimed, “Open up in the name of Her Majesty!”

“Quick, hide,” Tom hissed. Sweet Potato dashed for the kitchen and slipped up the chimney of the fireplace. Mariam ducked behind the puppet stand, willing her breathing to be quiet as possible. She heard the sound of the door open. This was followed by the sound of a carpet being unfurled.

“Rumpelstiltskin!” a young woman’s voice proclaimed. Mariam presumed that must be the Tyrant. She wondered if she really was as young as she sounded or if there was some magic at work. From the sound of the footsteps, several people had entered the little cottage. The Tyrant and her guard, probably.

“Your majesty,” Tom (Rumpelstiltskin?) oozed, “do what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I need a list of Heroes.”

“Surely there’s no matter beyond your own capabilities,” Tom protested. (The name Tom Tittot had meant nothing to Mariam, but she was certain that Rumpelstiltskin came from a story.)

“But not all Heroes can be trusted,” the Tyrant persisted. “As your sovereign, it is my responsibility to root out and destroy all false Heroes.”

“Too true, too true.”

“Oh, you devilish gnome, you’ve been entertaining mortals again, haven’t you? Well, it would explain why you’re dressed. Still working on getting to third base, huh?”

Mariam froze at the change of conversation and realized that she had left the remnants of her food on the couch. She fretted whether to stay silent or make a run for the door when Tom’s voice called out, “Come on out, Mariam. It’s okay.” Mariam stood up slowly and then gave an awkward curtsey at the Tyrant, all while mentally reminding herself that she was _not_ a Hero.

“Shy little thing, isn’t she?” the Tyrant remarked.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Mariam said, but then she caught a glimpse of the Tyrant’s face and froze. Even if she hadn’t seen the Tyrant’s face in the family photos in the Smith penthouse, she would have recognized her. Even with her wearing elegant purple robes and a gold belt and a matching crown, standing a newly lain red carpet, Mariam recognized her. She was the spitting image of Mr. Smith. The Tyrant standing before her was none other than Clare Smith, eldest daughter of the Smith family, who was supposed to be away at college.

The Tyrant saw her expression and snapped at her, “What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Mariam said quickly. “Forgive me; I am unaccustomed to speaking with royalty.”

“That’s all right,” the Tyrant said, mollified. Then she leered. “Been having fun with Rumpelstiltskin here, have you?” Mariam blushed in response at the insinuation, and the Tyrant turned her attention to their host. “Although really, Rumpelstiltskin, you could do a lot better than _that_ when entertaining pretty young mortals. You look like you are going to call someone out of the blue and tell them they won a raffle they never entered. Or tell them their car’s extended warranty is about to expire.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Tom said. To Mariam’s eyes, he was briefly enveloped in a shower of gold-colored sparks, and then when they cleared, Tom had cornflower eyes and wavey hair like sun-ripened wheat. His clothes looked nicer, too, like something a prince would wear. He looked to see Mariam’s reaction. Then there was another shower of gold sparks and Tom now had long dark hair, silver eyes, and high cheekbones. Now he wore a uniform of pure white. “How’s this? Better?”

“Um…” Mariam tried.

The Tyrant, however, clapped her hands like an excited child. “Do the Sheik next!”

There was another spark shower and then Tom looked exactly like the lead character of Mrs. Smith’s favorite novel. Mariam had seen the cover art plenty of time cleaning.

Mariam shook her head. “Not this one. Magical brownface is not a turn on.”

“Oh, the Sheik turns out to be a white man,” the Tyrant revealed airily.

“He does?” Mariam asked. The Tyrant nodded in confirmation. Mariam turned her attention back to Tom. “Why don’t you go back to your real form? I know all of these are illusions anyway.”

“As you wish,” Tom said. With a final bit of magic, he returned to his usual used-car-salesman look.

“Well, now, enough fun and games,” the Tyrant said. “I do need that list, Rumpelstiltskin. As your queen, I command it of you.”


End file.
